TUESDAY, Dec. 11 (HealthDay News) -- Women stand a much better
chance of becoming centenarians than men do, a new U.S. Census
Bureau report shows.
Of the 53,364 people aged 100 and older in the United States in
2010, more than 80 percent were women, the report found. For every
100 centenarian women, there were only 20.7 men in that very select
age group.
Centenarians accounted for less than two per 10,000 people in
the total U.S. population, and 19 per 10,000 of people who were 70
and older, according to the analysis.
About 62 percent of centenarians were aged 100 or 101, while
about 92 percent were aged 100 to 104. Supercentenarians (people
aged 110 and older) represented 0.6 percent of the centenarian
population, the report said.
Centenarians were less ethnically and racially diverse than the
overall U.S. population. In 2010, 82.5 percent of centenarians were
white alone, compared with 72.4 percent white alone in the total
population. Hispanics accounted for 5.8 percent of centenarians,
compared with 16.3 percent of the total population.
Compared to other living arrangements, centenarian women were
slightly more likely (35.2 percent) to live in a nursing home, and
centenarian men were more likely to be living with others in a
household (43.5 percent). Centenarians who were white or
non-Hispanic were most likely to live alone, 36.4 percent and 35
percent, respectively.
Nearly 86 percent of centenarians lived in an urban area in
2010. Most lived in the South (17,444), followed by the Midwest
(13,112), Northeast (12,244) and West (10,564). In general, states
with the largest populations had the most centenarians, the report
noted.
California had the most centenarians (5,921), followed by New
York, Florida and Texas. Alaska had the fewest centenarians (40),
along with Wyoming (72), Vermont (133) and Delaware (146).
More information
The U.S. National Institute on Aging offers
healthy aging advice.